“They flee! They flee! My lord, the Achaeans! They run! We have put them to flight!”
He turned at that, sword blunted in his hand. All around him, to his left and to his right, before him and behind, thousands of bloodied men cheered and spat, roared and wailed, wept and shrieked. The sound was no different from the crashing waves of a storm, the warcry of the gods themselves. To one who was untested, it would horrifying.
“Take them to their ships!” he cried out to all who could hear him. “Take them to the sea!”
As a shepherd drives on his flock, so too did the prince drive on his men. From beneath the walls of their city did they force back the Hellenes, who until then had pressed them in to the shadow of their home as the ocean pressed on the cliff. With only enough time to suck in the heavy red mist that was now considered air, the victorious prince took to the field once more. With him rode his youngest brother, pretty and soft in his youth. On this day he had gone from coward to hero, from shame to glory. For that, the prince was glad to have him at his side as they drove the Achaeans back from their home. This victory was as much Paris’ as it was Hector’s. He start this all.
The Trojans were a swarm upon the field, scattering their foes before them like grain on the wind. This is what victory feels like, Hector grinned. Time and time again he had tried to bring them to the table, to settle the conflict through peace. Time and time again he had been foiled. Not this time. Not again.
“Will they ever cease?”
“My son, what do the scales tell you?”
“They do not favour the Hellenes.”
“He is needed then.”
The ditch had been birthed in to being years before, at a time when those within the city limits had believed that this was a war between good men. A war where tradition would be maintained, where gods would be honoured and the slain exalted. It was a symbol of Hector’s failure. Leaping across it and on to the camp beyond, the prince did not give it a backwards glance.
“We take their ships this day, before the light fails us!” he instructed, pointing with his blade to where he wanted Paris to lead the men.
The man followed his elder’s command, twisting his steed to drive on towards the edge of the enemy camp and then to the beach. Sparing only a moment to check that the royal was making his way without much, Hector returned to the battle at hand. The enemy were near enough in full flight, thousands upon thousands streaming towards the sprawling affair that was their camp. None seemed willing to face them, that wave of vengeance pouring from within the defiant walls of Troy.
To the prince’s dismay however, the Achaeans rallied. Above them stood Agamemnon, a shadowy figure cut against the darkening blue sky. Over the crying of ten thousand bleeding warriors, in the face of twenty thousand calls of pain or glory, the Hellenes’ words were lost on him. Whatever he said, it relit the spark of valour in the men below him, turning them to defy the storm coming from over the crest.
Time did not slow in the resulting clash, if anything it seemed to run on faster and faster. Time and time again Hector called his men forward, only to be driven back over the bodies of the slain. For every Achaean slain the Trojans were driven back a step and vice-versa. He spotted Paris a dozen times, merely fleeting snaps of a warrior who had yet to be claimed by the Keres.
“Hold the line!” he rasped, taking a moment to catch his breath, breathing in the copper to try and quench the fire ravaging his lungs.
The men seemed to hear the words, but did they understand them? With a curse, the prince watched in dismay as the line caved, the foreigners hacking away as they pressed some ill-gained advantage. The smell of loosened bowels was over-powered by the metallic scent of blood, as the sight of victory was replaced by the sight of failure. He could already see the tide turn with the setting of the sun.
Hector did not call the command to break free from the fighting however he could not muster up the energy to demand the fight to continue. Chests heaving, the two hosts disentangled themselves from each other beneath the combined light of sun and moon. With night fast-approaching, both armies had only one thought on their mind, and that was not of trying to kill their foes.
So upon the plain Hector ordered his host to rest for the night. “Upon the morrow we will burn their ships.”
The generals nodded in agreement, their confidence restored after fighting the Hellenes all the way back to their encampment. Some had had doubts about victory in the previous years of the war, having lost so much in the fighting as one by one, their allied cities fell to the invaders. Now, however, their prince would see them to a hard earned victory that would resonate throughout the ages.
He finally turned back to face the madman. His brother was no longer at his side, vanished as if he were an apparition. Zeus and Apollo, do you desert me now? The gods did not reply, nor did they give him a sign that his life would be saved. All around him the army of Troy was broken, a herd of frightened cows driven mad by the savage attack of a lion. They could not resist the tempest that was the Achaean charge, they could not stop the bloodlust that had settled on the invaders. You who have protected me, Troy’s greatest warrior, you who have brought me here, will you give me a glorious death?
Hector watched the man approach, Ares cloaked in the skin of man. He had been consumed by a fire. It was a raging inferno that would make ash of his spirit, turning him in to a walking husk of a man.
“Hector!” the beast-man cried out, hurling his ashwood spear at the prince, a snarl on his lips.
“What do the scales say?”
“Hector shall go to Hades.”
“Then leave his side, my son.”
Ducking beneath the weapon, Hector launched his own spear, rising to his full length. Apollo guide my shaft. What could have been despair welled up in him as the thrown spear struck Achilles’ shield, a piece of artistic mastery that appeared to defy the arms of mortal men. A half-step back, the Trojan prince accepted the truth of his fate then.
“Before the gods,” the gods who have abandoned me, “I call upon you to honour an oath that, no matter who falls, the other shall allow the corpse to be treated with respect.”
“Does a lion make deals with men?” hissed the Achaean. “You shall die and the body left for the dogs to feast upon as the funeral pyres of my friends burn bright.”
With that, Achilles raced forward, a spear in his hand once more. Drawing his sword, the sword of Troy, Hector rushed forward to meet him, alone of the warriors of Troy to remain defiant. Achilles, moving faster than speech, sent his spear forward towards the prince. Trusting in the armour of Achilles, Hector made to slash out at his foe’s chest. However the sword never met flesh, the blade being jerked back as Hector’s entire body went limp, his legs falling from under him. |